Page 1 of Nothing Like the Movies

CHAPTER ONEA YEAR AND A HALF LATER

“I hate you so much that it makes me sick.”

—10 Things I Hate About You

Wes

I shut off my alarm—six a.m.—and sat up in the dark.

AJ, my roommate, muttered, “Sadistic assbag,” and rolled over in his bed while I climbed out of mine and got dressed. We’d been sent to the same Canadian summer baseball league and stayed with the same host family, so even though it was only the first day of fall classes, it felt like we’d lived together for years. I knew he’d sleep in until five minutes before we had to leave for lifting, but I wanted to be wide awake and ready to go hard when we hit Acosta in a couple of hours.

I put in my AirPods and cranked “Trouble’s Coming” as I took off down the hill, making my way past dorms whose names I’d yet to learn. I’d run every morning since move-in, and there was just something about campus in the early hours, before it came alive, that I loved. Seeing the sun rise, listening to the birds (between songs), running past the green trees on the hill that somehowfeltdifferentfrom the green trees back home; I was smitten with California.

I was smitten with UCLA, to be precise.

And honestly—my smittenhood probably had more to do with the fact that it was where my second chance was happening than the location itself. Yes, it was a gorgeous setting, but it was the setting where my dreams were taking place.

That was the sappy shit that I felt in my bones as I slowed to let a scooter zip past me. Because I was obsessed with the possibilities of this place. The baseball potential (both college and fingers-crossed MLB), the educational potential, theotherpotential; this spot on the map, Westwood, was like the starting point of my everything.

I kind of wanted to break into song as I jogged around a dude with a hose who was washing out a trash can; I was that big of a sap.

Instead, I gave him a chin-nod and kept running.

Good morning, my dude.

AJ might’ve thought I was out of my mind for running so early every day, but he was just a baby, an eighteen-year-old who’d barely had time to shed the title of prom king before reporting to school.

I, on the other hand, was a twenty-year-old freshman with a lot to prove.

Because two years ago, I’d had everything.

Then I lost it all.

So now that I had a second chance to grab on to that everything, you could bet your ass I wasn’t casually reaching.

No, sir, I was greedily grabbing with both hands and never letting go.

I was carpe diem–ing the crap out of my life, throwing myself into every single moment because I knew firsthand how fleeting those moments could be. I mean, if I was being honest, I was absurdly giddy about my first day of school. Like, I didn’t want to spew bullshit liketoday’s the first day of the rest of my life(that was tragically close tolive, laugh, love, right?), but it kind of felt like it was.

And I was so ready.

I ran my three-mile loop, showered, then grabbed a breakfast burrito with AJ at Ackerman before we took scooters over to Acosta.

I fucking loved the scooters.

Since I hadn’t brought a car to college and didn’t own a bike, the Bird scooters that could be found all over campus were the stuff of my dreams.

Wes + scooters = HEA

God, I really am an overexcited kindergartener on my first day of school, aren’t I?

I was still nerding out when I got to my first class—lifting had done nothing to hack my buzz.

“Welcome to Civil Engineering and Infrastructure.”

I entered the lecture hall the second the professor started speaking, which meant that all hundredish students in the enormous classroom turned their eyes away from him to witness my entrance.

Way to go, dipshit.

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